


Consumption, Devotion, Infatuation

by BanSW, KatiesGhost



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied Murder, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Solo family feelings, Switching, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Whatever the opposite of slow burn is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-01-05 08:44:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18362567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BanSW/pseuds/BanSW, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatiesGhost/pseuds/KatiesGhost
Summary: Arkanis University theology professor Armitage Hux has come into a sizable inheritance after the mysterious death of his father. He elects to take a well-deserved sabbatical to explore three major sites of cultural and religious history over the course of a year. It should be, by all accounts, an interesting and refreshing journey. It would be, too, if he didn’t keep running into this asshole. (Or, the Eat, Pray, Love AU that absolutely nobody asked for)





	1. 1.i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everyone! I'm pleased to announce that I'm finally ready to begin posting my work from the KBB 2018. Fic will update approximately once every two weeks. 
> 
> I'll be editing ASAP to include my partner, [Katie's](http://katiesghosts.tumblr.com/), phenomenal artwork. 
> 
> This fic wouldn't be possible without [Gefionne's](http://gefionne.tumblr.com/) brilliant beta work and [Marlonbookcase's](http://marlonbookcase.tumblr.com/) cheerleading!
> 
> How this fic works: 
> 
> Eat Pray Love is 108 short "tales" split into 3 parts, with 36 chapters pertaining to each of the three countries the author visited during her "journey." I'm not quite so masochistic, so please enjoy 27 smutty vignettes (9 per country, three per chapter,) plus an epilogue.
> 
> At its core, this is hate mail for the author of Eat Pray Love, a book suggested to me by a mental health professional many years ago. Where I expected to find inspiration and healing, I instead found a lot of whining, and deeply unhealthy ideas about relationships, mental health in general and recovery in particular. As any reasonable person would do, I've written a porn parody and cast an impressive amount of shade at the source material. If you have questions about EPL, this fic, mental health, recovery, sex, gelato, or religion, please don't hesitate to drop me a comment here or a message on [tumblr! ](http://bandvn.tumblr.com/)
> 
> When this fic is complete, I plan to release a spoiler-heavy "Director's Commentary," including some background information and fun facts about this AU that didn't make the fic and discussion of some of the heavier themes that I touch on. That'll be up on one of my blogs and linked at the end of the work!
> 
> I find it inappropriate to tag every single character or relationship that's even tangentially mentioned, so please be aware that this fic contains the background pairings of Han Solo/Leia Organa, Finn/Rose, Lando Calrissian/Tendra Risant and Clan Techie/Matt the Radar Technician.
> 
> I write, edit and post exclusively on mobile, so please let me know if you come across any major formatting errors!
> 
> EDIT 27APR2019: Chapter 1 now includes artwork by the brilliant Katiesghost!

**Italy**

_Chapter One_

_Upon the Altar of Ben_

_or, Three Tales of New Beginnings_

 

Armitage Hux (just Hux,  _ thank you very much _ ) checked and double checked his packing list, neatly stacking another three books into his already overloaded trunk. He was forgetting something, he knew it, but  _ what _ ?

 

“Tell me again what you're doing, Hux?” Phasma asked from the bed, amusement clear in the lilt of her voice.

 

Hux cast a glance at her, imagining what their conservative older colleagues would say were they to discover how comfortable she had made herself in his bedroom—in his  _ bed _ . Phasma’s appropriated portion of his inheritance had clearly been treating her well, if her freshly manicured nails and outrageous heels were anything to go by.

 

“I've told you, Gwen, in the wake of my father's death, I am taking some personal time to grieve and to reevaluate the direction my life and career are taking,” he replied automatically, scooping up his fat ginger cat before she could climb into his suitcase for the third time.

 

Millicent jumped at Phasma’s unrestrained guffaw, digging her claws into his shoulder before darting under the bed and out of sight.

 

“Did anybody actually believe that crock? Everyone knows how much you hated the bastard,” Phasma said, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye.

 

Hux thought he did an admirable job of suppressing his instinctive flinch at that hated word:  _ bastard _ . 

 

“It's hardly funny,” he said, turning his disapproving gaze back to his list, before adding in a softer voice, “I'm going to do some research, live a little. See who I am without his shadow hanging over me.”

 

“And, what, leave the department to Peavy? For an entire year? That doesn't sound like the Hux I know.” Phasma's voice was softer now, too.

 

“I just— Let me have this, Gwen. You've got your money and your comfort. Let me, at least, have this,” he implored, quietly, adding the white-jacketed novel that had spawned this entire daft plan to the trunk. “Besides, I've got Mitaka looking after things.”

 

“Of course you do,” Phasma agreed. “Your department, your flat, even Millie. I'm surprised you haven't granted his dearest wish and allowed him to take care of your cock, as well,” she added, thinly veiled amusement back in her voice. 

 

Dopheld Mitaka, Hux’s advisee for his second doctorate, would be enjoying a year free from rent in exchange for ensuring the security of Hux’s flat and the good health of his beloved cat, who did not abide travel of any kind. Mitaka was an eminently capable educator: brilliant, devoted to his field, and, above all, loyal to Hux. He'd never given any indication that he, well— And, of course, Hux would  _ never _ , not with a  _ student _ .

 

Hux shook himself from such thoughts, refusing to acknowledge the flush creeping up his neck. After all, when was the last time he had even—

 

_ No _ . Back to packing. Now if only he could figure out what he was forgetting. 

 

\---------

 

Flying was exhausting. Even the admittedly short two-hour-and-thirty-minute nonstop from Stansted into Ciampino was enough to leave Hux cranky and dehydrated.

 

He couldn't help picturing the smug expression Phasma had worn as she had hefted his suitcases into the cab for him that morning, and suppressed a flicker irritation when this greasy cabbie gave him the same look after depositing his luggage at the door to his third-story flat. An extra twenty euros had the portly man on his way without a word.

 

The flat itself was lovely, newly renovated but in an older building and carefully chosen after weeks of deliberation, costing twice what he paid in Arkanis, despite being half the size. After nearly three hours in the air and another in the cab, all Hux cared to examine was the bog. 

 

That done, he turned his attention to unpacking: neatly folding his clothing into the wardrobe and organizing his books on the empty shelves. The task was a matter of only ten minutes, though Hux succeeded in dragging it out to half an hour as he adjusted and readjusted the arrangement, unable to quell the unease simmering in his gut. 

 

The studio, in spite of its minuscule square-footage, seemed impossibly large and empty, with its wide windows and bright, modern furniture. He paced absently for a few long minutes, arguing with himself over whether or not to call Dopheld for an update on Millicent. 

 

_ No _ , he decided finally, looking out onto the sleepy street below. He was in  _ Rome _ , for fuck’s sake. It was time to go out into the real world, removed at last from the university, his father, everything he had ever known or been afraid of, and find out who he really was. 

 

\---------

 

Armitage Hux was, apparently, a man who  _ really _ liked gelato.

 

That first day, after forcing himself to endure six labyrinthine blocks of the unknown, he had succumbed to the heat (much too hot for September; what the  _ fuck _ was he doing here again?) and ducked into a tiny shop in pursuit of shade. The gruff older man at the counter had glared at Hux, who was rudely distracting him from his newspaper yet not spending money, until Hux caved and purchased a scoop of the persimmon to accompany him on his walk back to the flat.

 

He had returned the next morning.

 

And the morning after that.

 

And again after dinner, the same day.

 

It was becoming a problem, one that Hux couldn't bring himself to feel guilty about, even as he graduated from single to double scoops and watched a smug sort of fondness bloom in the old shopkeeper’s eyes. 

 

The fourth day’s pick was a sumptuous raspberry, run through with fresh mint leaves and such a lurid shade of pink that Hux delighted in imagining his father's reaction to it. He walked with the cone for another dozen blocks, mind set on arranging an appointment with the curator of the _Musei_ _Campitolini_ and walking among the pilgrims who had come to drink in that well-curated drop of Roman culture and history. He would kneel with them at the altars of Jupiter, of Psyche, of Marcus Aurelius. Perhaps he would even take a _selfie_.

 

The hill was bustling as he joined the crowd, tourists surging around him like a restless sea, and Hux’s gaze was caught not by the stunning museum complex but by a profusely sweating young woman, murmuring in some Eastern European language and smearing sunblock onto the splotchy cheeks of a fitful toddler.

 

Something dropped in his stomach, a half-recalled shock of fair hair and musical Gaelic, of soft hands soothing his own burning cheeks, of his father's voice, of a pain unlike any other in his arm and chest.

 

_ Sunscreen! _ How could he have forgotten sunscreen, of all things? The faint sting beneath his eyes and along the back of his neck were already a testament to his foolishness. He rubbed fitfully at the phantom ache in his left arm and turned quickly, chiding himself and casting about for a patch of shade into which to flee.

 

Hux had the briefest impression of a broad chest and dark eyes and a charcoal-streaked face before he was falling, gelato forgotten as his glasses were jostled off of his face, and he went down in an inelegant tangle of limbs.

 

* * *

 

Ben Solo was late, not something highly out of the ordinary, but he couldn't afford to be late  _ today _ , of all days. The tiny Swedish model staying in the flat below his was just finishing up his summer in Rome and would be flying out in only two days’ time. The recklessness of his dwindling summer days, aided, no doubt, by Ben’s recent purchase of a Swedish-Italian phrasebook, had the beautiful young man deigning to spend his daily  _ fika _ , and, hopefully, his last two nights in Italy, with Ben.

 

If only the fucking crowd would get the message that he was in a hurry. Uncle Lando had been generous enough to get Ben into the  _ Palazzo Nuovo _ a full two hours ahead of the claustrophobic rush of camera-toting tourists, but he had lost track of time in his study of the statues and was now trapped in the same crowd he had gotten up so early to avoid. 

 

Ben was caught up in visions of ice blond hair and getting his hands on his neighbor's tight little ass when the crowd suddenly surged and parted, an opportunity too good to miss. He tucked his chin to his chest and held his bag out in front of him, pushing through into the gap that had just opened, only to run headlong into a wide-eyed man who was frozen mid-turn.

 

Time seemed to drag in the moment of collision, the two men's fall impossibly slow for all its inevitability. Ben had an impression of soft-looking ginger hair and a faintly pink face, the crush of a melty cone of gelato directly beneath his left pec—who ate gelato for breakfast?—before he was taking a bony knee to his upper thigh and rolling to prevent his bag from being crushed between them. 

 

When Ben came back to himself, he was sprawled half across the other man, with a skinny arm trapped beneath his chest and most of his weight resting on one of the other man’s hips. He shifted away quickly, not missing the way the man’s face tightened up in pain as he rolled off.

 

“ _ Mi scusi _ ,” Ben said, once he had regained balance on his own knees, extending a hand to the bewildered man, who was squinting hard at him.

 

Ben caught sight of a pair of thick, wire-rimmed glasses a short distance away and managed to scoop them up from underneath the boot of a burly-looking man, who didn't even seem to have noticed their predicament. He was shot a commiserating glance by a waifish blond woman who had her arms full with a red-faced toddler, before she ducked her head and hurried off in the broad wake left by her much taller companion.

 

The man, red-faced to match his hair, snatched the glasses from Ben’s slack fingers and began aggressively cleaning them with the hem of a button-down shirt that had probably been crisp and free of wrinkles before their tumble. He replaced his glasses and Ben was transfixed, gaze locked on eyes that were wide and very bright, the color of a storm, crinkled up in the beginning of a sneer.

 

All at once, time seemed to lurch forward: the man hauled himself to his feet, brushed the dust from the seat of his shorts, spun on one heel, and darted away into the crowd.

 

He caught one last glimpse of a bird-boned ankle and milky calf, a flash of coppery hair, and then the stranger was gone, leaving Ben on his knees in the surge of people. 

 

\---------

 

It wasn't until two days later, when his beautiful neighbor shot him a disgusted look from the passenger seat of his cab, that Ben even remembered his date.

 

\---------

 

A week later, Ben sat atop a low wall in the lengthening shadows of the  _ Tempio Maggiore di Roma _ , trying to sketch the sprawl of the Tiber, the passing worshippers, the synagogue itself,  _ anything _ that wasn't high cheekbones and squinting eyes and neatly styled hair. He stared hard at the profile of a man on a bench across the street, with long  _ peyos _ and a black overcoat that looked much too warm for this weather. He was talking to someone Ben couldn't see. His pencil never stopped moving as he took in the details of the scene, the way the fading light drew out a flash of silver in the man’s beard and made sweat bead underneath the band of his  _ kippah _ .

 

Ben’s eyes fell to the sketchbook in his lap and he cursed, finding not the wizened face of the old man but a pair of skinny legs which disappeared into shorts that, absurdly, looked like someone had attempted to iron creases into them. He didn’t even consciously remember that detail, but it stood out clearly when he cast his mind back to the red-haired man, to the startled spread of his thighs. He sighed and turned to a fresh page, determined to concentrate on drawing his  _ actual _ subject. 

 

When Ben glanced back to the bench in the courtyard, he was surprised to see the man had risen from his bench and was firmly shaking the hand of his previously unseen companion. Ben’s breath caught in his chest.

 

It was  _ him _ , unmistakably. The dark linen suit he was wearing added bulk, but did not altogether hide the slim taper of his waist or the long stretch of legs that Ben knew to be creamy and smooth. The dying light set his hair aflame against the bruise of the evening sky, and Ben was on his feet and stalking toward him before he was even properly aware that he was moving.

 

He was more beautiful than Ben had remembered, up close. His face and ears were a fetching pink which might have been sunburn, or simply the fact that he was wearing far too much clothing for this heat. He caught sight of Ben and something shut down in his eyes, though he continued to smile fixedly and give his farewells to his conversation partner. When his companion turned on his heel to begin the long walk up into the temple, the man spun quickly and began walking directly away from Ben, ducking around a building and out of sight.

 

“Wait!” Ben called out, jogging slightly to catch up with him once he rounded the same corner, heedless of the slip into his native English in the desperation of his pursuit.

 

The man turned slowly, expression guarded, and ran his gaze up the length of Ben’s body. A trail of warmth bloomed in the wake of that steely gaze.

 

“Can I help you?”

 

The man’s accent was crisp and, mercifully, English, with just the slightest lilt to suggest that it hadn't always been so BBC-perfect.

 

“I wanted to apologize,” Ben said breathlessly, “for last week.”

 

The man’s eyebrows shot up in surprise before he said, “Right. Of course. It's not a problem.”

 

He turned, about to walk right out of Ben’s life  _ again _ , except it would be worse this time, because  _ fuck _ did he look good in that suit, and Ben had to make him stay, just for another minute, just so he could keep looking, even though it would never be enough, not  _ now _ , and—

 

“At least let me replace your gelato” burst from Ben’s lips an instant before the stranger could turn another corner and disappear. 

 

One bright eye peered back at him over the man’s shoulder, appraising, and Ben felt hot all over.

 

* * *

 

Hux wasn’t entirely sure how he had ended up here, pressed between this mountain of a man (an  _ American _ , Armitage, honestly?) and the peeling green paint of the door to a dumpy, second-story flat a half an hour’s walk from his own, but he couldn't find any part of himself that truly minded.

 

The man,  _ Ben _ , had indeed replaced his gelato, at a tiny shop a few blocks east of the Jewish Museum that Hux refused to admit was even better than his little shop up near the  _ Piazza della Pilotta _ . He had then, absurdly, taken Hux on a long walk along the Tiber, past a Vietnamese restaurant and the French consulate, and Hux had, for some unexamined reason, followed without fuss. 

 

They had veered away from the river where it started to curl back north in earnest and walked up past the Church of  _ Santo Eligio _ , lit up like a Harrods’ Christmas display in the hazy purple of the long summer sunset. Ben talked all the while about something Hux couldn’t be bothered to pay much attention to.

 

Their gelato long exhausted, Hux was just thinking about catching a cab back to the pizzeria around the corner from his flat and getting an infusion of melted cheese to help ease him to sleep when Ben drew up short in front of a cheerful-looking seafood restaurant with diners packing the terrace. 

 

A tilt of Ben’s head had Hux following him to a tiny table wrapped in cozy, intimate shadows at the very back of the dining room. He wondered, not for the first time since he had come to this city, what the  _ hell _ he was doing here. 

 

A waitress dropped off two menus printed on cheap cardstock and a basket of warm bread, before she began to speak in fluid, impenetrable Italian that Ben seemed to have no trouble following. The way his plush lips wrapped around the sweet syllables of the language set a sort of warmth blooming low in Hux’s gut.

 

The waitress turned to him and asked something that he was sure he remembered seeing in his Italian phrasebook, but couldn't seem to pull from the fog in his brain. Ben laughed softly at his vacant expression and said something to the waitress that made her smile knowingly and hurry away from their table. 

 

“So, Hux, what brings you to Rome?”

 

Hux didn't remember giving Ben his name, but surely he must have, sometime during the hour they had spent walking together. 

 

Ben proved to be a much more attentive listener than Hux had been, asking insightful questions about his work at the university and his plans for the rest of his time in Rome.

 

The dinner passed in a blur of light banter and too much wine and shellfish in beautiful, rich sauces and more of staring at Ben’s plush mouth. Before Hux knew what was happening, Ben had taken him by the hand and was leading him along a busy street to a tiny park with a babbling fountain and a host of benches occupied by couples in the varying stages of courtship: a pair of teenage girls blushing over a spray of daisies and an older couple that looked as though they had sat in this park together every day for many long years.

 

Perhaps it was the wine they had drunk over dinner, or the same impossible recklessness that had brought him to Rome in the first place, or the beauty of the night and of the strange man he with whom he had spent it, but something had Hux tugging Ben to him by their still-joined hands and kissing him right there, in front of the fountain and the couples and the entire glorious sprawl of Rome. And,  _ oh _ , it was good: the way Ben’s soft mouth moved against his; the sensation of a hand gently alighting on his hip; the heady, lingering taste of their meal when their tongues curled together slowly. 

 

Time did a funny thing then, for it seemed that while Hux was still lost in the slick press of their mouths, Ben had guided them across the piazza and up a flight of stairs to press him against a door in a damp-smelling hallway while he fumbled for his keys. 

 

When they finally stumbled into the flat, Hux had a brief impression of a claustrophobic little room filled with canvases and heaps of crumpled paper, but then Ben’s lips were on his neck, hands cupping his ass and guiding his thighs up around broad, muscular hips. Hux delighted in the effortless way that Ben carried him, easily navigating the cluttered floor before he settled on the edge of an unmade bed pushed into one corner. He drew Hux down on top of him, one hand clasping the back of his neck as they sought out each other's lips again and again.

 

Ben was beautiful, even in the watery, sodium-yellow light that filtered in through the dirty window,  _ especially _ when he spread his thighs and whispered, very sweetly: “Please, Hux.”

 

And Hux couldn't seem to deny Ben, not on the street, not in the restaurant, certainly not now, as he whimpered and writhed on Hux’s fingers. Ben was impatient, and Hux was powerless to resist the pull of legs wrapped around his waist or the low, breathless sounds Ben made as he pressed in slowly. 

 

_ God _ , Ben was tight, relaxing by increments and so hot around him, even through the condom Hux had hastily slipped on. At Ben’s shaky nod, Hux began to rock his hips, drawing out slowly and driving in harder, deeper with each thrust until they were both panting into the humid little space between their mouths. 

 

Hux reared back to guide one of Ben’s legs from around his waist up over his shoulder, and the new angle punched loud, animal whines from that obscene mouth with each slap of their hips. Hux reached down to take Ben’s cock in a white-knuckled fist and had barely given it ten strokes before Ben was coming, one arm thrown across his eyes as he shouted his pleasure to the ceiling, to the heavens beyond.

 

The way Ben clenched around him, back bowed into the force of his orgasm, was exquisite, but Hux drew out at the first sign of an oversensitized grimace, snapping off the condom and taking himself in hand. Ben threaded the fingers of one hand into Hux’s sweaty hair and sat up to bite at his lips, drinking in the strangled moan Hux let out as he spilled between them.

 

After another few minutes of slow kissing, once their heart rates had returned to normal, Ben crawled out from under Hux and ducked into his tiny bathroom to clean up. Hux collapsed, dumbfounded, onto the filthy sheets, trying to muster the energy to drag his exhausted body into his clothes and back across town.

 

He was still lying there, sweat chilling his skin despite the warmth of the room, when Ben returned a few minutes later. He seemed startled to find Hux still there.

 

Hux was just about to bolt for his trousers when Ben climbed into the bed beside him, trapping him against the wall and slipping a warm arm around his waist. 

  
Well, Hux mused, this trip was supposed to be about experiencing pleasure, about finding God, about  _ maybe _ learning to love and be loved. Perhaps here, in Rome, worshipping at the altar of Ben’s body, he could do all three.


	2. 1.ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our young lovers begin to fall, in more than one way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you for the wonderful reception to this fic! Your lovely comments have been a delight this week. I looked ahead and found that I'm going to be stupidly busy for most of the rest of this month, so please enjoy chapter two a week early! Three will be up on or before the 25th of May. 
> 
> Questions? Comments? Concerns? Recipe tips? Hit me up on [tumblr! ](http://bandvn.tumblr.com/) (Join me for Sleepover Sundays every weekend through the end of the month!)

**Italy**

_Chapter Two_

_So Long, and Thanks For All The Digitalis_

_or, Three Tales of Falling_

 

When Ben woke up, it was to watery sunlight filtering in through the filthy panes of his apartment window and an empty bed, the sheets still crumpled with the impression of the other body that had lain there in the night.

 _Hux_.

 

If it weren't for the faint hint of woodsy cologne and sweat lingering on the air, and the sweet ache in Ben’s lower body when he sat up, he might have thought that it had all been a dream. With a sigh, he hauled himself from the bed and into the bathroom to splash some water on his face.

 

Morning hygiene seen to, he staggered over to the kitchenette to put on a pot of coffee. While it brewed, he snatched up the day’s pill case from its slot in the organizer and habitually counted the pills as he emptied them into his hand. Four, just like he knew there would be.

 

Ben couldn't shake himself of the compulsion to count the pills, even though Leia had filled the organizer herself before he left—even though it had been _years_ since he had last taken too many, or too few. Even though he felt great. He cast a baleful glance at the book propped on the trunk beside his bed, its paperback cover bent and feathering at the corners from frequent reading.

 

Some people _could_ live happy, fulfilling lives without their medication, could tap into a limitless supply of luck and support, could wean themselves off of the drugs that Ben would _always_ require to function.

 

Ben wasn't one of those people, even here in Rome, even on this ridiculous ‘journey.’ He wouldn't ever be, not with the way that loneliness and depression always seemed to be accompanied by rage and fear, and he had to be okay with that. He _was_ , really. He took his four pills in the morning and his two pills at night and he was okay— _stable_ —never swinging too high or too low, never in danger of hurting anyone ever again. Sometimes he still got anxious, but not in a way that impaired his ability to function. It had once kept him trapped in bed and lashing out like a feral cat.

 

He had his art, and, after five long years, his family back. And, he thought, glancing at the rumpled sheets, now he had a muse.

 

He swallowed the pills down with a cup of strong black coffee and a bitter nod at the novel, before he turned to the tiny table that held his paints and spent an hour or so mixing the perfect palette of greens to paint a mid-September storm.

 

\---------

 

Ben felt good in Rome, he decided. He had more freedom than he had ever truly known, even in art school and especially before, but he also had more focus.

 

He had his customary, supposedly ironic, Last-Week-of-September Green Day playlist blaring in his ears as he walked toward the _Piazza Venezia_ on a sultry afternoon two weeks after the night he'd spent with Hux. Ben set an easy pace as he walked, occasionally raising his phone to snap stills of the buildings, the people, the graffiti on the fountains, anything that caught his eye along the way.

 

He was absently waiting for his phone’s camera to refocus on a distinctive splash of copper-gold in the distance when he realized with a start just where he had trained its lens.

 

Hux was perched on a bench across the street, book in one hand and melty pink gelato in the other. (Again? _Seriously_ , what was with this guy and his ice cream?) He was wearing the same sweet little shorts he'd had on during their first fateful meeting—creases and all—but the wide-brimmed sun hat and gauzy tunic were definitely new.

 

A grin spreading across his face, Ben tugged out his headphones and darted through the gridlocked traffic and across the piazza. He slowed a few paces from Hux, suddenly conscious of how much he had sweat on his walk, and, _oh, God_ , he hadn't even checked his hair or his teeth. And what if Hux thought he was a stalker? He should just go—

 

Green eyes snapped up and he couldn't move, couldn't breathe, because Hux was here and looking at him.

 

Slowly, so slowly, something like a smile spread across Hux’s face, and suddenly Ben wasn't worried about anything.

 

Hux stood wordlessly, indicating with a jut of his chin and a glance over his shoulder that Ben should follow him. They walked in a silence that was brimming with potential, too charged to be companionable but not in any way uncomfortable.

 

Ben was lead through the winding labyrinth of Rome’s streets, up three flights of stairs to an apartment that was much nicer than his own, with crisp white furniture and wide windows that let in the warm afternoon light, casting the entire scene in shades of gold. He longed to photograph the moment, the long stretch of Hux's legs as he reached up to return his book to a high shelf.

 

Hux’s grin, when he turned back to Ben, was predatory. Hux took him by the shoulders and led him, backwards, to a bed absolutely heaped with pillows and a downy-soft duvet, where he rode Ben in the long rectangles of sunlight. Smooth, lean thighs drove him down onto Ben’s cock again and again, while Ben’s thick, meaty hands clasped at the too-thin curve of his waist, the pronounced jut of his ribs.

 

They didn't speak as they moved together, didn't seem to need to. Hux’s breath was strawberry-sweet when he leaned down to slide their mouths together, and Ben promised himself, then and there, that he would buy Hux as much gelato as he wanted.

 

* * *

 

Ben, like the gelato, was becoming something of a problem, an addiction that Hux couldn't find a shred of guilt about indulging in. His body was magnificent, of course, but he was also devilishly witty and well-informed on a wide variety of subjects.

 

Three nights after their second—and third—rounds in bed, Hux found himself at loose ends. He had turned up at Ben’s door with a bottle of wine and been welcomed in to spend a fascinating evening chatting about the new, slightly terrifying, intellectual property bill over in America, and the Hawaiian senator who was fighting most strongly against it. He was surprised to learn about the bill’s long-reaching effects, how it would hurt small businesses and could even affect his academic work back in London. Ben had sucked Hux off beautifully, then kissed him with cherry-and-latex-scented lips while he stroked himself to completion across Hux’s narrow chest.

 

Ben showed up at Hux’s flat the following weekend with boxes of spicy noodles and listened to Hux talk about his dissertation until a hazy purple dawn broke over the city. They hadn't even had sex that night, just curled up to sleep for a few hours in Hux’s bed before they went about their separate days.

 

 _Doctor Hux_ , famed Arkanis University hard-arse, wouldn't have liked Ben very much, he thought. An American, spending the year after his late graduation from art school abroad to find _inspiration_ , would never have appealed, no matter how beautiful he was.

 

 _Just Hux_ , itinerant scholar, belated purchaser of sunscreen, wearer of _shorts_ , found himself quite taken with the big man and the comfortable, easy way he fit into Hux's life here in Rome.

 

He liked the light bickering that Ben always seemed to be up for, the debates on any and every topic.

 

He liked the way that Ben sometimes joined him in his exploration of Rome’s many churches, the way he would chime in with his seemingly boundless supply of information about Bernini or Tintoretto or Uccello, the symbolism they used and the petty rivalries that ensnared them.

 

He liked the way Italian sounded when Ben spoke it: the way the words opened themselves to him and rang out all the more beautiful in his low, smooth voice.

 

He liked the ways their bodies fit together: in either of their beds, in the muggy afternoons and the crisp evenings, and, on one particularly memorable Sunday morning, in the powder room of an Irish-owned expat bar near Hux’s flat.

 

He _especially_ liked the way that Ben would sometimes show up with a hand-packed pint of gelato and a single plastic spoon, feeding him bites of it and then kissing the taste from his lips.

 

\---------

 

The second week in October, Ben asked Hux to join him for a few days in Venice, and Hux found in himself no desire to turn him down.

 

It was, much as Hux had expected, a melancholy little city that smelled strongly of mildew and fish, equal parts beautiful and indescribably sad. Expensive little shops lined streets that were clotted with the bustle of tourists in all the various stages of coming and going, while the locals looked down on them from their high windows with unreadable expressions.

 

And yet, Ben seemed to belong here, with his big, watery eyes and heavy brow, his artist’s ideas and the little plastic cases of pills that rattled at the bottom of his backpack for the entirety of the train ride up. He was made for the Adriatic breeze tangling his hair and the shimmer of low-hung fairy lights in his eyes.

 

They stayed in a _hostel_ , of all places, where they shared the same tiny bunk bed and fucked against the filthy tiles in the shower.

 

Ben walked with Hux beneath the frescoes in the _Scuola Grande di San Rocco_ and the _San Pantalon_ , and cheerfully translated when Hux’s Italian phrasebook failed to hold up against the dense Venetian dialect. He took Hux to tiny, dimly lit trattorias where they ate gorgeous handmade pasta in briny sauces and fried fish that was worlds above the little chip shop he frequented with Phasma back home. He kissed Hux in the salty air of the port district and held his hand, heedless of the sideways glances of the elderly and the encouraging smiles of the young people and the doll-eyed stares of pigeons, everywhere they went.

 

Hux felt the approach of the new year closing in like a vise around his chest, like the ten weeks before he left for India were both infinitely long and impossibly short, but then Ben was touching him, taking pleasure in his company and his body, and Hux couldn't find it in himself to be afraid.

 

\---------

 

The first week of November, Ben showed up with a bag of mulling spices and a packet of contraband sparklers. They spent their own little Bonfire Night celebration huddled together under a thick blanket on the roof of Hux's building, trading sips of spicy wine and long, slow kisses while they watched _V for Vendetta_ on Ben’s phone.

 

Hux couldn't remember ever having more _fun_.

 

\---------

 

Hux was awoken late the following morning by the cheerful electronic tune that indicated an incoming video call. He swiped to accept and grimaced when he caught sight of his sex-mussed hair, hastily switching off the front camera before the call could connect.

 

A moment later, Millicent’s clearly unamused visage filled his screen and he couldn't keep the smile from his face.

 

“Hello, darling,” he cooed, slipping out of bed and into his robe.

 

“Hullo, Hux,” came Dopheld's clearly amused response, after he had tilted his phone up to include himself in the frame.

 

“How were midterms, Mitaka?” Hux asked softly, creeping out into the hall and quietly shutting the door to allow Ben a bit more of a lie-in.

 

Lost in the blissful haze of too much wine the night before and the deep, restful sleep he had experienced in Ben’s arms, Hux never noticed the way a pair of cold-coffee eyes tracked him as he slipped out of the flat.

 

* * *

 

Something hot and sour curled up in Ben’s gut, making the back of his throat taste like ash and the sour dregs of last night's wine.

 

 _Darling_.

 

Hux had never called Ben _darling_ , had never called him much of anything besides his name and occasionally _you idiot_ , but even that had always felt like an endearment, with an amused sort of fondness glittering in his eyes.

 

Hux had always been cool; Ben had just taken that to be part of his personality. Despite their constant sniping and bickering, he really thought that Hux was coming to like him, that there was the chance they might find each other again, after Italy, after Ben got home next summer. He wanted to hear _darling_ then, not like this, on the phone to another man while Hux slipped out into the hallway wearing nothing but that slutty little robe and the bruises that Ben had given him.

 

What sort of person was this _Mitaka_ , that he could inspire such sentiment in the brilliant, frosty man? And how, _how_ , could Hux say it, just like that, as he crawled out of the bed he had shared with a man who was _not_ his _darling_?

 

Ben rolled into the middle of the bed and closed his eyes, listening to the muffled music of Hux’s voice in the hallway. He was still brooding when the other man returned fifteen minutes later, dropping the robe with a faint swishing sound.

 

“Move over, _you idiot_ ,” and shit, but Hux sounded fond, like, if Ben just opened his eyes and looked, he'd have one eyebrow raised and that warm little half smile that was becoming more common by the day.

 

Ben smiled, spread his thighs but didn't look at Hux to confirm his suspicions. Hux made an affronted sound, but crawled between them, all the same.

 

The sick, green feeling in his gut simmered and rolled, and later, as Ben was coming in the latex-muted heat of Hux’s mouth, he couldn't resist the urge to cry out: “Oh, darling!”

 

\---------

 

The remainder of November brought cooler nights and afternoon rains, the kind of clinging humidity that made the streets smell even worse and chilled Ben to his very bones.

 

They sought solace in musty libraries and dingy coffee shops, debating the interpretations of Renaissance works over endless cappuccinos and, of course, despite the cold, gelato.

 

At least, Ben thought, he'd have plenty of opportunity to lose the weight he'd gained in Rome on the remainder of his journey.

 

Hux had gained weight, too, and it suited him splendidly. Where the bulk of Ben’s muscles ensured a fairly even spread of his ten guilty pounds, Hux’s slender lines had been in desperate need of filling in. The hollows beneath his eyes were less severe, his cheeks just a little fuller after three glorious months of wine and carbs. He looked the same in his prissy clothes, but naked, the sharp jut of his ribs had softened, and he now had a sweet little swell beneath his belly button that Ben liked to pepper with kisses.

 

Hux turned a very fetching shade of pink all over when Ben did this, so, of course, he took every opportunity to do so.

 

Hux never once complained.

 

\--------

 

They still hadn't talked about the call, or the three others Hux had taken since, or about the fact that Ben was leaving in only four weeks, or about anything else that really mattered, by the time Thanksgiving rolled around.

 

Hux had wrinkled his nose at the mention of the holiday, but consented to accompany Ben on a visit up to Viterbo, where Finn and Rose’s tiny vineyard was.

 

They weren't his friends, not really, not anymore, and Ben suspected that the invitation had come at Leia’s request.

 

Even so, he wouldn't dream of turning it down. Finn had proven time and again that he was a good man, even after everything, and Rose was usually pleasant, if a bit fiery. They were both American expat food writers, and excellent cooks. Even if the day proved to be an awkward one, the dinner was sure to be worth it.

 

Finn picked them up from the train station in a squishy little car that had insufficient leg room for the average person; Ben and Hux both had their knees up by their chins for the entire twenty-five-minute drive up into the hills.

 

Rose greeted them in the kitchen, with a fork and two pencils stuck through her ponytail and a dusting of flour across her little nose. She gave Hux a once-over and a nod before she set them to work peeling turnips and cardoons, chattering all the while about her recent trip down to Crete for the fancy chef’s journal she worked for, how lovely the grapes had been that year, and _Ben, honestly, when’s the last time you called your mother_?

 

Hux took it all in bemusedly, as if he couldn't quite imagine how he had found himself here, but was soon ensnared in a heated conversation with Finn about the benefits of the French versus the Italian way of making macarons, a subject which he was surprisingly well-informed on.

 

Ben couldn't help but smile to himself as they sat down and, at Rose’s insistence, joined hands and began to share what they were thankful for this year.

 

Rose and Finn were, of course, thankful for each other, for the jobs that let them live and share such a beautiful lifestyle, for friends both new and old, missing and present.

 

Ben was grateful for finally completing art school, for the outpouring of support from all corners that had allowed him to do so, and, he gave a faint squeeze of Hux’s hand on the tabletop, Hux himself, for all the joy and inspiration he had brought to their time in Rome.

 

Hux’s eyes were very bright when his turn came and he told them all that he was thankful for Ben and for Rose and Finn’s hospitality and for their wonderful homemade wine and absurd American traditions, and—Ben had to laugh—gelato, and, puzzlingly, digitalis.

 

Silence fell after that and it was wonderful, brittle, sacred thing, full of warmth and potential.

 

That night they curled together like spoons in a cluttered little guest room and Hux pressed his face into Ben’s hair, whispering _thank you_ again and again, until Ben fell asleep to the feeling of hot tears and cool lips on his neck.


	3. 1.iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of the end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, as always, to Katie and Gef for their tireless cheer-leading and support! The first part of the Director's Commentary will be posted later today!

**Italy**

_ Chapter Three _

_ The Things That Make You Pray _

_ Or, Three Tales of Loss _

 

December was chilly and windy, but much drier than November had been and still warmer by far than Arkanis was at the moment, if Mitaka was to be believed. 

 

Ben, Hux learned, had spent his school years growing up in Hawaii with his father and his summers in the District of Columbia with his politician mother. His art school, too, had been in sunny central Florida, where he rarely had to cope with nights that dropped below freezing. 

 

It was delightful to watch him come in from the cold, puffed-up and red-faced in his insufficient layers. 

 

The shift in the weather seemed to bring out Ben’s natural desire to cuddle, but Hux didn't mind. He didn't mind a lot of things, when it came to Ben, but with only three weeks left until he departed for India, it was high time that he either reined in his affection or laid himself bare and asked whether Ben would wait another nine months for Hux to finish finding himself. 

 

In the end, Hux decided on neither option, too overwhelmed by the mere thought of losing, or dare he even think it, of  _ keeping _ Ben.

 

He instead dedicated himself to the task of selecting what may well be the only Christmas gift he would ever buy for his strange, infuriating,  _ wonderful _ American _.  _

 

\---------

 

He found just the thing in a kiosk of goods knit by a little  _ nonna _ with no teeth, but bright, laughing eyes. 

 

\---------

 

December also brought more calls from Mitaka, tackling finals season on his own for the first time since he'd come to Arkanis and counting down the days until he and Phasma joined Hux in Rome. 

 

Hux wasn't entirely sure what Phasma got out of paying for Dopheld to accompany her, but it  _ would _ be good to see them. They'd be bringing Hux’s pre-packed baggage for the rest of his trip—India and Bali both requiring vastly different supplies than Rome had—and spending the week before Christmas with him before flying home. Dr. Opan, a colleague from the Anthropology Department, would be looking after Millicent. 

 

Hux was almost excited to introduce them to Ben, to see the looks of puzzlement on their faces. 

 

Phasma would certainly be shocked. It had been years since he had last taken a lover, and Ben was worlds away from the short, meek, bookish men that had always been his type. He chuckled to himself, imagining her reactions.  _ An artist, Armitage? An American? God, he looks like he could pick you up with one hand! _

 

He could, and it was  _ amazing _ . 

 

Hux wasn't entirely sure what Dopheld's reaction would be. The younger man had always been reserved and deferential in all his dealings with Hux and, despite their now frequent video calls, they had never really spoken in an informal setting.

 

Hux’s stomach turned over as he remembered Phasma's assertion of Dopheld's interest before he had left.

 

Maybe he shouldn't introduce them, after all. His relationship with Ben was nebulous and ill-defined anyway, and, with the unknowable future closing around them like a noose, likely unworthy of straining his relationship with his colleagues over.

 

Surely Ben wouldn't mind.

 

\--------

 

It had been Ben’s suggestion, two weeks before Christmas, that maybe they ought to go and get tested. Hux had taken the suggestion poorly, mind spinning out of control with  _ why _ , and  _ we’ve always been careful _ , and  _ who else had _ —

 

No, Ben, was quick to reassure him. There hadn't been anyone else, not for a long time, and he just  _ really _ wanted to know what Hux felt like, tasted like, without a layer of latex between them.

 

Hux made an appointment for the following day, not realizing that the clinic he had booked them at was all the way up in  _ Rione iv Campo Marzio, _ north of  _ Trevi _ and almost a 45 minute walk from Ben’s tiny flat in  _ Rione Sant’Angelo _ . 

 

It was a beautiful day for a long walk, Hux thought: crisp and clear as they passed the Pantheon and the  _ Mausoleo di Augusto _ and a dozen pop-up Christmas markets, a cup of custard-thick drinking chocolate and Ben’s hand to keep him warm.

 

The clinic itself was cheerful and well-lit, with friendly young staffers that Ben spoke to in his beautiful, sensual Italian. They shared an exam room while they waited to receive their results from a pretty nurse who spoke to Hux in perfect, if heavily accented, English. 

 

Hux wasn't really surprised that he and Ben were both clean; in spite of the speed and passion with which they had come together, they had always taken appropriate precautions. He loved the way Ben’s massive hands looked and felt as they delicately rolled a rubber down his aching length, and Ben had looked nearly concussed the first time Hux had put one between his lips and taken him to the base with one long, slow suck. 

 

As much as they had always appreciated playing it safe, Ben couldn't seem to help himself now that they had taken this new step, a wild sort of desperation blooming in his eyes the minute the nurse turned them loose. He took Hux’s hand and hauled him into the washroom of a tiny pub across the street, where he swallowed his cock with a low noise of appreciation. It had been so long since he'd last done this without a barrier, and Ben’s mouth was  _ so warm, _ that Hux had to bite down on the sleeve of his jumper to avoid crying out. Ben  _ worshipped _ him, sucking wet kisses into the skin of his pelvis and tugging lightly on his foreskin before taking him all the way down with wet, dramatic movements and beautiful little sounds that had Hux writhing in moments. 

 

It was over much too quickly, and when Ben stood to adjust himself in his trousers, Hux fisted both hands in those soft black curls and pulled him in to suck the taste of himself off his tongue.

 

Fifteen minutes later, too weak-kneed and eager to walk all the way back, Hux called for an Uber while Ben ordered a late-afternoon ale and left the irritated bartender a generous tip.

 

They didn't leave bed for the next three days.

 

**~~~~~~~~~**

 

Ben just didn't know what to do; he still hadn't told Hux that he would be flying home on Christmas Eve, in less than two weeks. 

 

It felt like bad luck, like assigning an expiration date to the unnamed, wonderful thing that they had shared these last few months, but it had to be done. Hux  _ had _ to know, and Ben had to know whether Hux would wait for him. 

 

Hux didn't seem the type to care for big, romantic declarations, and Ben didn't want to put him off. He had spent weeks trying to come up with the right things to say, and all he had show for it was a poorly wrapped Christmas gift and an ache in his stomach. 

 

There was also the matter of Mitaka, Hux's  _ darling _ , whoever he was, back at the university. There was the very real possibility that Ben was nothing more than a reckless vacation fling, and he just couldn't bring himself to confront that any sooner than absolutely necessary. 

 

Ben had already started his preparations to return home, hiring a company recommended by Uncle Lando to pack his paintings up for safe transportation and boxing up his books and all of his summer clothes. Hux hadn't been by his apartment in days, so he hadn't even seen the slow dismantling of Ben’s life in Rome, hadn't been able to ask about it. 

 

Maybe he wouldn't ask about it, even if he did know. Maybe Hux had always thought of Ben as something temporary, would notice his departure but not mourn the loss of him in the same way that Ben was certain he would, for the rest of whatever life he had after Hux.

 

What would that life look like? 

 

Ben was a competent painter, and the solid foundation he had built out of natural talent and hard work and years of practice would ensure that he never went hungry, but he would likely never enjoy the sort of fame that his grandfather had known, even as he inherited the man's intense predisposition for melancholy. 

 

Ben had gone through all of art school on medication, a constant companion that kept him steady enough to learn the craft, even as it prevented the sorts of highs and lows that distinguished history’s most memorable creators. He'd been praised as technically perfect, though lacking in vision. 

 

His work from Rome was something else entirely: vibrant landscapes and intense, emotional portraits and sensual abstracts that had brought even Uncle Lando—museum curator, recovering art thief, prissy aestheticist—to a halt when he visited Ben’s apartment at the end of November. 

 

Would he lose that inspiration when he left Rome? Had it come from the city, or from Hux himself? Would it be something he could carry between his ribs and come back to over the years, even if he never saw either one again? 

 

\---------

 

There was something a little desperate going on between them, Ben knew. He couldn't help but notice that they were going out less, talking less,  _ everything _ less, except for the conversations they had with their bodies, between the sheets of Hux’s big, soft bed.

 

Each time he showed up at Hux’s door, they were on each other in an instant, as if they both knew, without a word spoken about it, that this was the end, that these wintery nights in Rome were all that they would ever get.

 

He couldn't get enough of Hux’s breathless kisses and the sweet little sounds that he would make when Ben eased him open with his tongue, or the gorgeous way that Hux would finger him and swallow his cock and moan around him, as if Ben’s pleasure was  _ his _ pleasure, too.

 

They carried on like that every night for a week. Ben would show up late in the afternoon and they would delve into each other again and again, until it was so late that it was early, pausing only to eat carry-out dinners right there in Hux’s bed, or to just hold on and breathe together, watching the bright Roman night through Hux’s wide windows. 

 

And then one night, Ben knocked on Hux’s door and there was no immediate answer. The was no answer when he knocked again, louder, two minutes later, and again, five minutes after that. 

 

Hux still wasn't there when Ben came back the next night.

 

Or the night after that.

 

Ben felt cold all over. The last few weeks had been near freezing at night, but Hux had been a burning presence in his chest, keeping the biting wind at bay. Surely he wouldn't have left without saying  _ something _ . He cursed himself for never even getting Hux’s phone number. It hadn't seemed necessary, at the time; they had always known how to find each other.

 

Ben forced himself not to return every night after those first three, still holding on to the vague hope that Hux would come to him, instead.

 

But of course he didn't, and that was how Ben found himself sitting in the chilly hallway outside Hux’s apartment at eleven o’clock on the twenty-third, just six hours before his flight back to D.C. departed, head in his hands and Hux’s Christmas gift, the pitiful culmination of all their many hours together, sitting beside him. 

 

Ben wasn't sure how how long he had been sitting there, legs numb, when a loud clatter rang up the stairwell and—

 

“Ben!”

 

There was Hux, red-faced and practically floating toward him on a cloud of Chianti fumes, arm slung about the shoulders of a smaller, equally red-faced man. 

 

Ben felt something sick and clammy curl up from low in his stomach, but stood to greet them and tried to pull a smile. He had seen Hux drunk several times, but never like  _ this: _ sloppy and leaning heavily into someone else. 

 

“Ben this is my—" A hiccup. “This is Mitaka.”

 

Of course it was. Right.  _ Perfect _ .

 

Mitaka was smaller than Hux, but sturdy-looking, as if he actually found the time for more physical activity than what was required to grade tests and read scholarly journals. Ben recognized the look in his eyes, the way he was watching Hux with deep, slightly exasperated fondness and admiration. It was the same way that Ben looked at Hux.

 

_ Right _ .

 

Ben walked stiffly toward, and then past, them, a polite “Merry Christmas, Hux,” thrown over his shoulder just before he ducked into the stairwell. 

 

Hux didn't come after him.

 

**~~~~~~~~**

 

Christmas Eve dawned clear and bright, and Hux hated it with every fiber of his being. 

 

The faint sound of snoring reached him through the fog of his hangover, and a smile broke out across his face.  _ Ben _ .

 

Hux turned over, expecting to see the sleep-soft face of his lover, finally back with him after a week of Phasma’s near-constant presence. Instead he found himself in an empty bed.

 

The snoring was coming from Dopheld, sprawled across the little sofa under the windows, and the sight of him brought the night before rushing back.

 

There had been too much wine with dinner, and then cocktails to celebrate their last night together in Italy. Phasma found herself a pretty little distraction for the evening, and had banished Mitaka from their shared hotel room. Hux, more drunk than he could remember being since his student days, turned his ankle in a pothole on the way back and had, humiliatingly, needed to lean on Mitaka to mount the three flights of stairs up to his flat.

 

Ben  _ had _ been there, though he wasn't now. That was okay. With Phasma and Mitaka flying out that afternoon, Hux would still have an entire, uninterrupted week to spend with Ben and finally discuss the possibility of sharing a future after their travels were over.

 

Phasma burst in twenty minutes later with a cardboard tray of lattes and a fat bag of chocolate pastries. She peeled Mitaka off the sofa and settled in cheerfully, talking all the while about the day's itinerary. 

 

In Hux's hungover state, it seemed natural to linger over breakfast and Christmas presents before confronting the day in earnest. He gave gave Phasma and Mitaka a pair of very expensive shoes and a campus bookstore gift-certificate, respectively, and received in return a Tesco-sized carton of Loperamide tablets and a cheeky wink from Phasma and a pair of very soft,  _ very pink _ hand-knit yoga socks from Mitaka.

 

And then, finally, they were on their way. It had been good to see them, but Hux hadn't kissed Ben in an entire week and he needed to get his fill before he left for India, in case they would never see each other again.

 

When he opened the door, twenty minutes and a hot shower later, Hux found a package pushed up against the opposite wall, wrapped in shiny, slightly crumpled paper with a tag that just said ‘Hux’ in Ben’s elegant handwriting. 

 

Hux couldn't keep the grin from his face as he slid the package, along with his own gift for Ben, into a canvas grocery bag and raced down the stairs and out into the clear Roman sunshine. 

 

\---------

 

The door to Ben’s flat was wide open when Hux arrived. He peered around the doorframe to find a short, plump woman singing softly to herself as she scrubbed the battered floorboards. 

 

Gone were the claustrophobic piles of paper and boxes, the easel under the window, the little moka pot that Ben kept up on the shelf behind the sink. The cleaning woman's voice echoed off the high ceiling and spotless walls.

 

Hux felt sick as he retreated from the little flat, found he couldn't breathe by the time he reached the street and fled down a foul-smelling alley. 

 

The alley spat him out into a tiny piazza he hadn't seen before, with a long-dry fountain that smelled strongly of urine and a single rusted bench. Hux collapsed onto it, pulling Ben’s package out of his bag with shaking fingers.

 

It was shoddily wrapped, and the paper came away easily to reveal a battered sketchbook with a greying, heavily smudged cover. 

 

Hux recognized the book, of course. It had been Ben's constant companion in Italy, more so even that Hux. He had drawn in it constantly, sketching in the companionable silence they shared while Hux read and sipped his cappuccinos. It had been there on the trips to Venice and Viterbo, and had made frequent appearances in Hux’s flat, where the soft scratching of Ben’s pencils would lull Hux to sleep in the sodium-yellow light of the very late evening and the very early morning. 

 

Ben had never let Hux see his work, before, and it seemed wrong to look at it now that he was gone.

 

That night, he packed the sketchbook away in the bottom of his trunk, where he wouldn't look at it again until he was in Indonesia. 

 

\---------

 

Hux attended Christmas Eve Mass in Vatican Square, adrift and utterly alone in a sea of ten thousand singing pilgrims. He couldn't find it in himself to even enter the Basilica, to infect the sacred heart of Rome with his confusion and melancholy. 

 

In the end, he gave his sought-after tickets to a wide-eyed young woman so she could take her child in from the cold to receive some of the grace that he didn't even believe in. 

 

He watched the service on a giant television screen in the piazza, instead. When the time came, he bowed his head to pray along with rest of the shivering crowd and felt the silence press in around them like a living thing. It seemed like he finally understood things he had been clawing at the edges of for years: gratitude and regret and bone-deep want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT 6JUN19: Whew, it's been a wild ride. If you've made it this far, let me just say thank you, again, for reading! I'm very excited to share the next chapter, and in the meantime, I'm pleased to offer you a Director's Commentary of the first three chapters over on my [tumblr!](https://bandvn.tumblr.com/post/185410682418/directors-commentary-for-consumption-part-one)


	4. 2.i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Picking up the pieces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! I'm overjoyed by the recpetion to this fic so far! Now we're headed to our next loaction: India, and I'm afraid there's a little bit more pain in store for them. 
> 
> If you enjoyed Chapters 1-3, you may be interested in the Director's Commentary now available over on my [tumblr!](https://bandvn.tumblr.com/post/185410682418/directors-commentary-for-consumption-part-one)
> 
> Specific note about this chapter: I've updated the tags to reflect a few of the more difficult themes we'll be dealing with in this chapter, such as frank discussions of mental illness. Please don't hesitate to get in touch with me if you have any questions about possible triggers!
> 
> It will be a couple of weeks until the next chapter is up, as life is a thing that happens.

**India**

_Chapter Four_

_Every Day, I Start Again_

_Or, Three Tales of Growth_

 

Ben was exhausted by the time his plane touched down at Dulles International. A cheerful flight attendant announced that it was 12:55 p.m., local time, but Ben’s body violently disagreed. A night spent on the floor outside Hux's apartment followed by twelve maddening hours in the plane had left him disoriented and with a terrible ache in his lower back. He hadn't even been able to stretch his legs during the ninety-minute layover in Brussels.

 

Rey was waiting for him beneath the giant blue Arrivals board, red-nosed but smiling into a reusable plastic cup of pumpkin nonsense. Her smile got impossibly wider when she caught sight of him, and Ben dropped his duffel bag to return her enthusiastic hug.

 

 _God_ , it was good to see Rey again.

 

They hadn’t really been close for the first few years after Leia and Han had adopted her, when she had been ten years old and so full of personality and independence that she had hardly noticed Ben’s resentful silence from his far-off university. They had hardly spoken at all, in fact, until Ben’s hospitalization five years ago, when Leia had forced him to come back to the capital. Rey, in spite of Leia’s disapproval, had taken the twenty-seven minute Metro ride from her fancy private school up to the Howard University Hospital every afternoon. She would kick off her pinchy little shoes and climb up onto the edge of Ben’s bed and talk while she did her homework.

 

She told him about her classes and the kittens that had been born under the dumpster behind Leia's office and all about her friend Finn, who was a few grades above her but was from South Africa, _too_ , only he didn't have an accent anymore and—

 

Well, Ben didn't pay much attention during those early days. He was convinced that Rey would eventually get bored with his silence and his stupid, broken brain and just go back to doing whatever it was that fourteen-year-old girls did.

 

Only she didn't, and when Ben went home to Leia's tiny guest room six weeks later, Rey was waiting for him with a paperback copy of _Eat, Pray, Love_ and a couple of guided meditation DVDs.

 

Now nineteen, Rey was excelling in the same political science program that Ben had dropped out of. He couldn't find it in himself to resent her for it. Whenever he saw a flash of pride in Leia's eyes or the way that Han had finally learned to show affection or the bravery with which Rey tackled every new challenge she came up against, he could only feel awed and grateful to have her in his life. She deserved it. She deserved all the happiness in the world.

 

He was less grateful for the complete lack of legroom in Rey’s squishy little yellow car. They spent the better part of the afternoon rushing around the city to collect all the last-minute Christmas necessities that Han hadn't picked up during the week. The cramped quarters proved worth their discomfort, however, when Rey pulled into Ben’s favorite gyro shop on the way home to buy them big, greasy boxes of souvlaki and salty wedges of fried halloumi.

 

Italy had been beautiful, pleasurable, and transformative in ways both completely new and millennia old, but it was good to be home.

 

\---------

 

That night, after a revitalizing nap, Ben had the novel experience of helping Rey decorate the big artificial Christmas tree in Leia's sitting room with a wild combination of shiny, color-coordinated baubles and hideous craft projects from their childhood. He hadn't even known that Leia had kept all of his misshapen pipe-cleaner candy canes and glitter-and-construction-paper snowmen. They had certainly never been displayed openly, as Leia had always opted to have her tree professionally decorated when he was growing up. Ben decided he liked this better.

 

Something warm and unspeakably sweet unfurled in his stomach as he watched Rey drape a garland of silk frangipani over the tree from where she was perched on Uncle Chewie’s shoulders. Poe was in the kitchen, chatting animatedly with Leia while he presided over the frying of batch after batch of _maduros_.

 

Leia’s chief-of-staff, Amilyn, was perched on the edge of an uncomfortable leather sofa, smiling into her sparkling grape juice as she listened to Rose talk on and on about the cookbook that she and Finn had coming out in March.

 

Han sat in his big easy chair, a transplant from their house in Honolulu now that he was living with Leia full time. Uncle Lando and his wife, Tendra, were huddled nearby on the adjacent loveseat, and they were all laughing about something that had happened more than twenty years ago, when they were young and beautiful and _free_.

 

There was still a hollowness in Ben's chest, an echo of space he had made for Hux, but, surrounded by the love of a family he still wasn't sure he deserved, he could already feel the ache receding into something manageable.

 

They stayed up all night, drinking wine and watching awful claymation movies until the bells from a half-dozen churches could be heard joyously ringing in the holiday. A moment of perfect stillness settled over the house as the tolling fell away and Ben had the absurd thought that if God was anywhere, it was here, in this moment. He didn't need to travel halfway around the world to search for inner peace; here with his family and friends in the quiet regarding of the end of another year, peace had found _him_.

 

\---------

 

They exchanged gifts over a quiet breakfast, since Leia and Rey would spend most of the day with Amilyn at the women's shelter down on Thomas Street, armed with crates of blankets and clothing, and enough pastries to fortify a small army. Poe had already caught a red-eye to visit his dad in Miami, and Finn and Rose would be flying to California to visit Rose's sister, but Lando and Tendra would come back that night for a signature Organa-Solo Christmas dinner of Chinese take-out and board games.

 

Rey was delighted with the collection of new yoga gear she received in anticipation of her trip to India with Ben. Leia and Han both had the same soft, tearful smile when he presented them with the family portrait he had completed during his last semester at Ringling.

 

Ben himself was nearly brought tears by Han and Leia's gift of new brushes, much nicer than anything he had ever owned before. His parents had never really understood his love of the arts. They had, in fact, forbidden him from attending art school and instead guided him into the poli-sci program at Leia’s alma mater in California. He had failed spectacularly, dropping out during his second semester and fighting to make ends meet with nothing but a shitty food-service job and his drawing to sustain him. Then came the breakdown, a few weeks before his twenty-fifth birthday. When Ben had finally recovered, it was to find that he had come into the trust that Leia’s father had left for him and therefore had the freedom to choose his own path. He had packed a backpack with all of his medication, two changes of clothes and one beaten-up old sketchpad, and taken an overnight Greyhound to Florida without even saying goodbye.

 

He didn't speak to anyone but Rey for the next four years.

 

When Ben came back to the District, BFA in hand, he had expected resentment, anger, maybe tears; instead he found Han and Leia united for once. There _had_ been tears, but they were Ben’s, and they were joyful. His parents may not have understood the pain he felt or the way art had drawn him in like a moth to a flame, but they _did_ love him. They were grateful to have him back, and had proved it time and again.

 

**~~~~~~~~~**

 

Hux was exhausted by the time he reached the _Palace of the Adhīśvara_ , the Punjabi ashram that would be his home for the next four months. The past week had been a blur of sleepless nights in his too-big bed and day-trips all across Italy—a futile effort to get himself away from Rome and its thousand little reminders of Ben.

 

He'd spent an entire afternoon mindlessly roaming Florence and hadn't even thought of visiting the _Santa Croce_ or the iconic red-domed cathedral. He'd ridden more than _two hours_ on buses, only to be disappointed by the pizza in misty Naples. He hadn't even left the train station in Venice, overcome by the wave of nausea and heartache that had gripped him with the first breath of cold, salty air.

 

But that was Italy, and this was India. After days without sleep and a long flight followed by a slightly terrifying cab ride up the side of a mountain, his body was in complete agreement with the clock: it was bedtime.

 

He was greeted at the gates by a skinny man with a stutter and an insubstantial yellow jumper, who stared at him while he filled in a thick folder of waivers, course enrollment forms, and, of course, billing information, before handing him a room key and a map and bidding him a good night.

 

Hux barely had the energy to climb the three flights of stairs to his dormitory. He didn't even bother to turn on the lights and unpack, just pulled off his glasses and fell into bed.

 

He drifted off to sleep thinking that there was something familiar about the man who had welcomed him to the ashram.

 

\--------

 

New Year's Eve dawned chilly and bright, and far too early, with a weight settling into the narrow bed behind Hux, a nose pressed into the soft skin behind his ear, and a sleepy murmur of “What are you doing here, Bill?”

 

Hux didn't know who ‘Bill’ was, but he'd recognize that voice anywhere. Heart thudding madly in his chest, Hux peeled his face off of the scratchy nylon pillowcase and turned over to see—

 

Not Ben. Hux felt his stomach drop and fumbled for his glasses to get a better look at the stranger in his bed. When the man finally came into focus, he seemed to be adjusting his own glasses: big, unfashionable things with thick lenses and cheap, clear plastic frames.

 

He seemed to be built on the same scale as Ben: just a bit too big all over. His biceps bulged where they were revealed by the obnoxious orange singlet he wore and his large ears were starting to turn turn pink with either embarrassment or anger. The curve of his nose evoked very specific sense-memory in Hux's sleepy hindbrain.

 

There were differences, too, the longer he looked. This man's hair was coarse and blond, not dark and sleek, and he had angry, squinty eyes peering out from beneath a heavy brow, both made more obvious by those atrocious glasses.

 

“You're not Bill,” the man said, incredulously.

 

The two stared at each other for a long minute before the stranger reared back so quickly that he tumbled to the floor with a loud _thump_ , taking Hux's blanket and, somehow, one of his socks with him.

 

“I'm Matt,” he said, stupidly. “I'm a radar technician.”

 

Hux grunted something vaguely like his own name, tugged his blanket out of Matt's lap, and turned over to go back to sleep.

 

\---------

 

Matt, it turned out, was Hux's roommate, and he was, indeed, a radar technician in the U.S. Navy. Or, rather, he used to be; a fall off of the conning tower aboard the amphibious assault ship _Essex_ had shattered his pelvis and, with it, his career. A physical therapist had suggested yoga to help with flexibility and meditation to help with anger, and Matt, who never did anything by halves, had come to the ashram six months later and never left.

 

Hux learned all of this within about five minutes of meeting the man, who seemed physically incapable of shutting the fuck up so Hux could go back to sleep.

 

Matt ended up following Hux to morning meditation where he, mercifully, remained silent for the allotted ninety minutes, and then to breakfast, where he seemed to talk at double speed to make up for lost time. Every time he opened his mouth felt like a punch to the gut for Hux. There were subtle differences in the way that he and Ben spoke, true. Where Ben had spoken softly and deliberately, Matt always seemed to be yelling, forceful regardless of his actual volume and drawing more than one disapproving glance in the cafeteria. Despite their differing tone and cadence, the voice underneath was nearly identical: smooth and deep and _doing things_ to Hux.

 

It was a small mercy when he finally stalked off towards the campus office, in search of his ‘Bill,’ sometime after lunch.

 

It was going to be a very long four months.

 

\---------

 

New Year's at the ashram was essentially what Hux had expected: a claustrophobic press of revelers coming from all the surrounding villages to join the ashram in welcoming another year and saying a long, joyful farewell to 2017.

 

Hux sat on the fringes of the crowd, observing the singing, dancing and drumming with a nauseated sort of detachment.

 

He thought, mostly, of Brendol, and the bone-deep feeling of relief the man's death had brought. He thought of the fear and shame that had haunted him for most of his life, the way they were still nipping at his ankles, ready to overtake him at a moment's notice, should he allow it.

 

He thought, too, of Ben, and of his own spectacular failure in his courtship of the beautiful, impossible man.

 

He thought of the hundreds of people surrounding him, about how happy they were in lives much less fortunate than his own. They were beautiful like this: a sea of joy and hope and shimmering silk, noble and strong. They deserved none of his western condescension or his pity.

 

Though Hux had been practicing _hatha_ yoga since college, he had never felt as compelled by the practice’s spiritual aspect as he did now. As the Indian worshippers began to dance and sing more fervently and the westerners began their own, more familiar, countdown, Hux closed his eyes and drew in a long, deep breath.

 

When he expelled it, in the very last seconds of the year, he forced himself to let go: of Brendol, of Ben, of shame and fear and guilt and of all the other intrusive thoughts that would do him no good in the rebuilding of his life.

 

The clock ticked over to 2018, and Hux opened his eyes.

 

Nothing had changed.

 

Everything had changed.

 

 _Happy New Year_!

 

**~~~~~~~~~**

 

The first week in January found Ben curled up on the ridiculously comfortable sofa in Doctor Kalonia’s office, feeling lighter than he had in weeks after telling her about Hux.

 

Ben hadn't even mentioned him to Rey. Her boundless optimism and habit of trying to solve every problem she, or anybody else, encountered wouldn't have served him. There wasn't anything to solve, not really. He just needed the tools to grieve and recover on his own, in his own time, just as he had when he was twenty-five and again just last year, when he came home from art school feeling unbelievably tired and impossibly loved.

 

Doctor Kalonia had helped on both occasions, and he had no doubt that she could do so now.

 

“Let's start at the beginning,” she said, and so they did.

 

\--------

 

After two weeks back in the capital, Ben had only just begun to get his sleep schedule realigned with the rest of his family. Now he was riding in a taxi on a misty Punjabi back road, wide awake at what the clock told him was three in the morning, but his body insisted was actually dinner time.

 

Rey had slept during the second half of their sixteen-hour flight and already seemed to be mostly acclimated: leaning drowsily into Ben each time the cab whipped around a corner and tapping her foot along with the Bollywood soundtrack trickling from the cassette player.

 

It was nearly five when they finally rolled up outside the gate to the ashram—a big, ostentatious thing in red and gold, with vague 1980s styling. Ben's breath caught in his throat when he saw a head of orange hair peek out from behind the gate, but it was just an employee: tall, but so skinny that he seemed to vanish behind the clipboard he had clutched to his chest.

 

The man— “Bill. Hi, I'm Bill. My name is, uh— Hi.”— guided them up to the campus office and poured them each a cup of strong, fragrant tea while they filled out a veritable mountain of paperwork.

 

Ben tried very hard to keep himself from staring, but the resemblance was unmistakable. Beneath the greasy ponytail and puffy blue eyes and stutter, Bill looked just like Hux. The way one skeletal shoulder kept slipping out of his baggy yellow sweater set Ben's teeth on edge with the desire to protect and, _dear God_ , feed the poor man.

 

After a very tense forty-five minutes, during which Rey looked pleasantly puzzled and Bill looked anywhere but at Ben, a burly-looking man in a gray coverall stalked in. The way that Bill's entire face lit up with affection and delight caused something in Ben's stomach to roll over sickeningly. True, Hux had never looked at him like that, but he might have, someday—

 

“Mattie! Can you please take Mr. and Mrs. Solo to their room?” he asked, sweetly and entirely devoid of stutter.

 

“I'm not—”

 

“We're not—”

 

“He's gay!” Rey exclaimed.

 

“She's my sister, for fuck's sake,” Ben said, aghast.

 

The cherry-glow of a blush spreading across Bill's face caused Ben's stomach to turn over for completely different reasons.

 

\---------

 

Mattie—”Just Matt, to you.”—led them across a dewy lawn and up two flights of stairs in a long, boxy building to their room, which had a dresser, two narrow cots, and a minuscule bathroom that smelled strongly of industrial cleaners.

 

Rey started to unpack as Ben made use of the rust-stained toilet and was already curled up on her cot and frowning at her phone by the time he had finished washing the airplane smell from his hair.

 

“I saved you the top two drawers,” she said, ducking into the muggy bathroom with a towel over one shoulder.

 

Ben dutifully opened his suitcase and began arranging his clothes in the whitewashed dresser. He felt a pang of remorse when he set his pill organizer down next to Rey's, which was spray-painted bright green and covered with kitten stickers. He lined his bottles of antipsychotics and sleep aids up next to her vitamins and antiretrovirals and thought, absently, of South Africa and of the brighter future that Rey would help create.

 

\---------

 

Ben was rapidly running out of steam after a long morning of following Rey around the ashram. They'd decided to take themselves on the tour that Matt had neglected to provide and get settled in before joining the regular schedule of meditation and classes the following day.

 

The cartoonish, copy-paper map Bill had given them guided them from their dorm building to the library, bookstore and commissary, lecture hall, meditation cave, and half-a-dozen temples and shrines before they finally found the cafeteria.

 

There was an eerie quiet in the massive space, and Ben could see ‘I am in silence’ badges from the bookstore gleaming from the chests of nearly everyone in the breakfast line. There must have been some sort of retreat going on.

 

A single, familiar voice pierced the air just as Rey and Ben retrieved their trays, obnoxiously loud in the vast silence and drawing more than a few exasperated eye-rolls from both the staff and the pilgrims they were serving.

 

“—and then, if you can believe it, he kicked my wrench!” Matt said, to the obvious mortification of his sole table-mate.

 

Ben froze. _No_ , it was impossible. He hardly registered the clatter of his tray against the melamine countertop or Rey's startled look before he was in motion, long legs eating up the distance between him and—

 

“Hux?”

 

It took him a long minute to draw his eyes away from the grayish-looking food on his plate, but Hux eventually met his eyes.

 

It felt as if the entire room was holding its breath as Hux looked from Ben to the badge on his own chest and back again.

 

He reached up with a trembling hand and tore the thing from from his shirt before saying, in a soft, hoarse voice, “ _What the fuck_?”


End file.
